What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

[John Walsh]

What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

Re: What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

[Justin Mattock]

On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 7:10 PM, John Walsh <server422@gmail.com> wrote:
> What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?
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whatever one your comfortable with.

-- 
Justin P. Mattock

Re: What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

[Alan Cox]

On Fri, 22 May 2009 22:10:16 -0400
John Walsh <server422@gmail.com> wrote:

> What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

You should be fine with any standard distro these days. It can be
useful to pick one that follows the cutting edge but that isn't essential.

All the current major distros package stuff like git.

Re: What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

[Rik van Riel]

John Walsh wrote:
> What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

If you want to learn more about the system than
anybody should ever need to know, you can stick
with a bleeding-edge development distro like
Fedora Rawhide, Mandriva Cooker or Debian Unstable.

Make sure to always pull all the latest updates.

Sometimes you'll have a broken system which you'll
somehow have to untangle, but it's all part of
learning more than anybody should ever know...

-- 
All rights reversed.

Re: What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

[Jonathan Corbet]

On Sat, 23 May 2009 11:44:11 -0400
Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com> wrote:

> John Walsh wrote:
> > What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?  
> 
> If you want to learn more about the system than
> anybody should ever need to know, you can stick
> with a bleeding-edge development distro like
> Fedora Rawhide, Mandriva Cooker or Debian Unstable.

I do the bulk of my work on such distributions, but if you're really
wanting to get started with *kernel* development, there is one thing to
be aware of: development distributions can be an independent source of
instability/weirdness in a system.  If you're at an early stage with the
kernel, you may want to minimize the number of variables which can be
changing at once.  So it might make more sense to base your work on a
distribution which is not changing underneath you.

jon

Re: What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?

[Michael S. Zick]

On Mon May 25 2009, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> On Sat, 23 May 2009 11:44:11 -0400
> Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> > John Walsh wrote:
> > > What Distro is best for Starting Kernel Dev?  
> > 
> > If you want to learn more about the system than
> > anybody should ever need to know, you can stick
> > with a bleeding-edge development distro like
> > Fedora Rawhide, Mandriva Cooker or Debian Unstable.
> 
> I do the bulk of my work on such distributions, but if you're really
> wanting to get started with *kernel* development, there is one thing to
> be aware of: development distributions can be an independent source of
> instability/weirdness in a system.  If you're at an early stage with the
> kernel, you may want to minimize the number of variables which can be
> changing at once.  So it might make more sense to base your work on a
> distribution which is not changing underneath you.
> 

One of the major "outside" variables is the tool-chain you use - -
For that reason, I suggest you use one of the "Build From Source"
distributions.  At least you know your tool chain is working.  ;)

Personally, I use both 32-bit and 64-bit Gentoo.
Also, I avoid doing any updates that would change the tool chain
while in the midst of trouble shooting something.
Just keep your hands off of the --update button. ;)

Currently (both flavors, 32/64):
gen2-32# gcc-config -l
 [1] i686-pc-linux-gnu-4.1.2 *
 [2] i686-pc-linux-gnu-4.3.2

The 4.1.2 tool chain is "good" across the board for all Gentoo archs.
The 4.3.2 tool chain is not marked as "good" for hp-parisc.

Mike

> jon
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>